Retronauts - 660: Gaming's Chillest Snowscapes

Episode Date: December 30, 2024

Nadia Oxford joins Kat Bailey and Victor Hunter as they recall the best snow levels in retro games. Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts 

This week on Retronauts, there's no business like snow business, except during 5 p.m. traffic, then it can go to hell and melt. of everyone to this week's episode of Retronauts. I am your host, Anatomically Correct Snowwoman Nadia Oxford. I'm joined by two fellow children of the North, Kat Bailey and Victor Hunter. Kat, hi. I'm so happy to have you on Retronauts for a change. Say hello. Hello, Nadia. You're the host this time. Oh my God. I'm the lovely co-host now. That's right. And my lovely co-host, Kat Bailey. That sounds so strange. That means you have to have the quick. about something weird. That's my role.

Cat's nostalgia pit. Let's go. Let's go. And Victor Hunter, yes, we are all of the acts of the blog God, aren't we, Victor? Yeah. Oh, yeah. And used to the cold. Yes.

A week against fighting, fire, rock, and steel type attacks. Wait, is ice weak to steal? it's weak to everything it's the worst defensive type it's weak to a lot of stuff yeah it's positioned as a defensive type except that if you have ice you basically just give up because you're going to be melted burnt punched broken you name it yeah i love just thinking about Pokemon weaknesses in that regard like those some of those mnemonics are just wild like yeah i've ever tried to punch a bird as saturday morning yeah it's my favorite like role-playing

game abstraction. It's the thing that taught me that like, oh, RPGs are mechanics in an RPG is a metaphor for something. And I think Pokemon type advantages are the perfect encapsulation of that. Yeah, it's actually

really clever with like dark and psychic and bug and all that. But the point is ice sucks. Everyone kind of hates ice, except for us. We are born and raised in cold environs, weren't we people? I myself am from Toronto, which, okay, is not the coldest region in Canada. I'll give it that because we kind of have a microclimate thanks to the lake.

But the further way you get from the lake, the more you're going to just get pounded up the butt by a lot of snow. Victor, where is your snowy nest particular? Yeah, as a fellow Canadian, I grew up in the interior of British Columbia, particularly in Canada's only desert. Yes. So we had hot, hot, hot, hot, like southern California hot summers and cold, cold, cold, cold, winters. And it's not like Toronto.

It was a dry heat as opposed to a muggy heat. But then, yeah, those winters would be dry and cold. Yeah. Toronto winters are notoriously humid. And that means it's like, okay, it's zero degrees outside, roughly, but you're going to feel that chill in your bones. I'm kind of nostalgic for it. I like to be hurt by the cold, I suppose. I spent two years, I live two years in Toronto, which means I've experienced about a dozen Toronto winters.

You kind of get a whole bunch at once. Like right now it's raining. You know, good old Christmas rain, just like I had when I was a kid. What I'm learning, I've learned two things. A, that Canada has a desert and B, that Toronto has microclimates because I just assumed that it was sort of like New York, actually, and more along those lines than humid, which I think is interesting. Yeah, it's, when I say microclimate, I really mean microclimate. Like, the closer you are to the lake, the more you are protected from the cold and especially the snow. Like, one thing that recently, happened was some parts of America who don't live near Great Lakes, but for some reason we're getting snow squalls. And they were freaking out because with a snow squall in Toronto, it's like literally blue sky, five minutes later, screaming blizzard, 10 minutes later, blue sky. And that just assumed,

oh, I guess not everyone lives by the Great Lakes, which is a very temperamental bodies of water, hence the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Kat, you grew up alongside the lakes like me. I grew up in the land of ice of snow, Minnesota. The ice and snow. Minnesnoda. Minasnoda. My weather app tells me that it's 40 degrees, which is downright balmy for this time of year.

But it can get down to minus 20 often. And in fact, there was a time when I was in eighth grade, when I got down to minus 60. It was literally not safe to go outside. I have very strong memories of standing out in the corner in a snowbank watching my bus go roo-ro-ro-ro-woo, as it was trying to get to me. I had the, my first ever car was this 1994 Ford Sable and getting, and we lived at the bottom of two steep hills. And during the winter, when my senior year of high school was a really bad snowstorm, a lot of snow, very intense winter. And I literally could not get up that hill. You had to floor it because of all the ice in the snow.

So it was wild. It would get so cold in my hometown that as soon as I started moving in one direction, I couldn't stop and could only travel in right angles. And there were several hidden chests that required extra thought processes. The Minnesota deep lore, if you're a certain age, Like I am, you will recall the great Halloween winter of 1991, wherein the Minnesota Twins won the World Series and the state of Minnesota celebrated two weeks later by dumping literal feet worth of snow.

It was quite an amazing moment. I have strong memories of wearing a snowsuit and a little witch hat as my parents valiantly tried to take me trick or treating. Oh, that's so cute. I love that. God, snowsuits. You don't really see kids

in those anymore around here. I remember putting them on. They were the bane of kindergarten teachers because they'd have like 30 kids who all need to be put into snowsuits. And we all look like,

you know, Maggie Simpson when she has a little star, starfish snowsuit on. Or, I mean, actually, the bit from a Christmas story is pretty accurate with the little kid. I can't remember.

his name, the brother is just like standing with his arms out and like, I need to pee. Yeah. That's winter. When I was in a, when I was in college, I went to the University of Minnesota and it's a trap because you, you tour it during the summer or you go there in the fall and you look at the fall college and you're like, this is gorgeous. I love this. This is amazing. And then October hits and the first cold snap arrives and you think, I want to die, especially if the heaters haven't been turned on yet in the dormitories. And there are these steam tunnels running underneath the campus. So you can get inside and stay warm.

Wow. And I knew those, they were called the gopher holes. So the gopher tunnels, because gophers. And I knew those tunnels like the back of my hand because I went through them a lot while I was working for security on campus, except you had to get to those tunnels. And those five minutes that you were outside were the worst. moments of your day, I tell you. Edmonton has a whole underground network of just if you can avoid being above ground,

they'll do whatever they can. There's underground tunnels that lead directly to the mall from all the surrounding areas. Yeah, I think Toronto has like the biggest underground tunnel network of, practically in the world as far as I know. Like, there's, the several subway stations are linked, as is the East Center Mall. You can go, like, underground through all of downtown Toronto practically, but I get lost. So I just go up and freeze my ass off. But, yeah, one thing I wanted to ask you quickly, Kat, did you have winter in Japan when you were there?

Like, how did it compare? Yes, I went through three different winters in Japan. And the thing that a lot of people don't know maybe about Japan is that it's very tropical. And during the winters, you mentioned that Toronto is humid. Tokyo is so humid during the winter. I can't imagine. And it doesn't really snow. It snows very rarely.

It does snow, though, every so often. Mostly, though, it rains. And the humidity and the cold air penetrates your body in such a way that you want to die. And in your home, you can't have space heaters, Japanese, People like to go under the little tables, and they have the little, with blankets, they basically don't move. They have the warm soup. Yes. And when you wake up in the morning, you feel like an ice cube.

It's really rough. But in 2008, I went to Hokkaido in February. And I went to the Hokkaido Snow Festival, which, if you can ever go to that, is a real treat. I had the best ramen I've ever had in my life up there. They really know how to do it up in terms of soups in Hokkaido. And people create these huge snow sculptures out of video game and anime characters. And so I was seeing things like Ampan Man, which is this, I don't know if you've ever heard of Ampan Man. No, I have it.

It's kind of like a cookie man that you can eat. Oh, boy. He's a superhero. He's the inspiration for it. for one punch man. He's like, on pond man is a ubiquitous mask. Like a bean pan is a bean curd little pastry thing. Yeah.

And so apparently it's a superhero. And they have various Pokemon. There are pictures of me next to, say, a snow Pikachu. It was really, I loved it so much. I would definitely like to go. Yeah, Hokkaido Winters have always interested in me because they seem closest to what we grew up with. Like, whereas Tokyo seems more like it's closer to the monsoon season. versus an actual winter.

Yes, maybe Tokyo is actually closer to Toronto in many ways, except, but it doesn't snow as much. It's a little Vancouver-like. It's a little Vancouver-like. I've never experienced Vancouver winter, so I have to try it sometime. Yeah, it's also just mostly rainy. Yeah, so I've heard. But we, in this introduction to our areas of snow that we have lived We've kind of learned what makes snow scapes so compelling. You know, you mentioned fun things like the snow sculptures cat or the soup and the, you know, just trying to stay warm, which Japan is admittedly bad at, apparently.

So I thought maybe it'd be fun to just kind of talk about our favorite retro snowscapes in retro gaming. And these can be, you know, I was thinking at first kind of relaxing. We have a lot of those that we can talk about. but also just ones that are memorable and stick out of their minds and why and what makes them so, you know, nostalgic to us or important to us. And who wants to start? I have a list, but I don't know if you guys have a list, but I have a list. I'll start maybe by talking a little bit about what makes snowscapes and video games so evocative. Please.

So they're one of my favorite locations in a video game, and it's no surprise that Skyroom is my favorite. one because you basically spend a lot of time in snowscapes when you're ascending the mountain for the first time. That's a really memorable sequence. I remember there's sort of a snowstorm picks up. You are looking up at the top of a very tall peak and there's a dragon waiting for you and you're waiting through the snow and you're looking down. And I think that That's the moment that solidified Skyroom for a lot of people. But when I think of snowscapes in video games, I think of deep snow. I think of pristine environments.

I think of pine trees. I think of tinkling pianos. I think of fighting evil snowmen for some reason or Yeties. Or Santa, Secret Amana. Santa's in there maybe. You just shit out of Santa. And I think of sliding across ice. I think of getting frozen.

I think of freezing attacks. Yes. Ice caves, mountains. And like all things. Oh, it was sledding. Sletting, of course. Yeah, mini games. Or in the case of Final Fantasy 7 snowboarding.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They didn't have snowboarding and rebirth. How dare. I'm actually mad about that. It's under construction. It shows it

it right there. It's in the gold saucer. It's under construction. So we'll see it in disc three or part three as it were. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. But yeah, so I think it can be a, in the right hands, it can be really good. Pedpeave. And I think this is a thing in Final Fantasy 10.

When the characters don't change clothes and they're all still wearing their island clothes or short sleeves, but they're at the top of a mountain. And they're fine. You're literally dying. I love a good snow costume for a character, especially if they're wearing a big, fluffy scarf. You're going to

love and walker whenever you get to it. There is actually a scene quite like the one you mentioned, Kat, where everyone's called dressed up and bundled up, and that is in Mega Man Legends 2. When you go to Kalinka Island, also the

town of Yosloch, I think is called, but it's basically a big polygonal town, because of course, it's Megaman Legends 2, and is just so cozy and yet dire, because there's like this really creepy moment where this adventurer who was thought to be lost, but she returned, she found her own grave that they put up as a memorial. She wasn't coming back. She's like, wow, it's really weird to look down at your own grave. And of course, as this. is going on. It's snowing. It's just like a really cozy, as I say, cozy yet dire because Rojas has this beautiful fluffy pink jacket and she's worried about her father being dead. So yeah, good times. I love legends too so much. How cozy. How cozy.

I'm going to be able to be. There's sort of There's sort of two There's sort of two directions you can take If you're designing a video game, a snowy town in a video game, because you either use it as shorthand for like cozy, a holiday themed community where everyone's drinking hot soup and hot chocolate. Or you use it as the like,

this is the barren wasteland that we have to survive. And only the strong make it. here. That's like the, that's a bit of the garlamald or the, like, where in golden sun, it's where Satoros and Minardi are from. There's like, there's the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the other one I was just thinking. Oh, Valkyria chronicles for, um, you know, the empire is, empires love being snowy because, they do. They love being Russian. Empires, empires are, our lands of survival of the fittest. So what better way to showcase that than oppressive weather.

Yes. It can also be the land of the dead in Warcraft 3. For example, the undead all came from, in the lore of Warcraft, the Lich king, the original lich king, is sent in a frozen block of ice into the far northern locations of I, I think it's Northrend, and builds up the necropolis and enslaves the spider people, and then eventually invades Azroth, but it's safely out of view because the well, it's like the North Pole, basically.

Where's our presence this year? Oh God, it's spiders. No. I didn't ask for spiders. Mom! Santa gave me spiders again. Again. What did I tell you? I'm smoking.

Oh, gracious. It's funny, one of my favorite, absolute favorite and most accurate snowscapes is from a 16 big game, and that is Donkey Kong Country. The barrel blast level is on Gorilla Glacier, which is a whole snow area, and it has this gray sky that is absolutely perfect for what you see before a snowstorm. You see the snow kind of rolling in from the background, and when you finally get to the part, you're supposed to do all the fancy stuff with the shooting back. and forth with the cannons, you are obstructed by this snowstorm and just something about the music, first of all, because David Wise is brilliant. It's absolutely perfect for a snowstorm. Yeah. And just that kind of the way that your vision is obstructed by these beautiful flakes, but it's still a pain in your ass because they're getting in the way of everything. And

there are a lot of snowstorms like that specifically in Toronto where you're kind of on the edge are freezing and rain. So you get those very big, heavy snowflakes that are just gorgeous, but just completely soak you through. And that's exactly what the snow is evocative of in Donkong Country to me. Yeah, it's incredible. The weather effects in that game are fantastic. And then, like, when you get to the end of a stage and then it clears up, too, I love when

they do that in Donkey Kong country. And then Donkey Kong Country three is. Canada, the Donkey Kong game. It is. So there's, I mean, it's got some great, great snowy levels. That's got, that's the one with the, the snowman boss fight, right? That's the, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's, you're right.

That whole area, like, I know some people didn't like Doc Kong Country 3 so much because it wasn't really the tropical theme. It had the, as you said, the northern Kremlin, what's it called? The Kremisphere, Northern Kremisphere. And it was very wilderness. of northern Canadian wilderness sort of setting. It's beautiful. It was gorgeous.

It's a gorgeous game. And I do love the original soundtrack as much as I love David Wise. I loved what they did with that one in particular. Yeah. And speaking of, I mean, we've already talked a lot about Toronto, but speaking of games that are just set in Canada, we can't not talk about Scott Pilgrim. Oh, of course.

What a great opening level. I actually wrote an essay, I think. about the opening level, which is set in Toronto, and there's ice and snow, and you're beating everybody up, and that has that great opening soundtrack. Gosh, I can't believe Scott Pilgrim is already retro. And you can tell that the first three levels in that game get the most love. Yeah. They ran out of time.

They had to get that game out the door. So the last couple levels aren't amazing. amazing, but you do go back to that first level a lot because you are, it's River City ransom, right? So you have to repay Scott's video fees. It's a great location for grinding. And a lot of the shops are there. So you end up returning to that area of the lot. And it works pretty well. It also has one of my favorite boss fights in that game, which is, It's Matthew Patel. Oh, Mr. Pilgrim.

And his demon hipster chicks. Yeah. That, yeah, the artist for Spock Program, if I recall, was Paul Robertson, I think. And he is just one of the most brilliant Sprite artists of all time. Like, my dream is to have game animated by him. And he is from Australia, as I recall. But he perfectly encapsulated, or captured, rather, what the Toronto winters were like for me. I have to admit, it actually.

makes me a little nostalgic because I'm not saying we never get snow anymore, of course. But when I was a kid, it was much more common for you would go out. It'd be dark because, of course, it gets dark. I like two in the afternoon. But you'd be out with your friends and you're all kind of standing around huddled for warmth and people are packed in the coffee shops. And there's just like snow banks everywhere and, you know, cars going through the slush. It was just perfectly, perfectly done. And it's, as you say, it deserves its place in this, whatever the hell we're making here. The original movie, Scott Pilgrim, is filmed in Toronto, and it really made me think a lot of Minneapolis, the styles of the houses, when they're out shopping and they're in the record shops. A lot of that is very south Minneapolis in my recollections of that particular area, except there's a castle as well.

Castle Loma. That's Canada for you. You're thinking, this is a lot like the United States. Oh, wait, there's parliament in a castle and random British stuff, and they like the queen. Okay. And we also have our own weird stuff going on. Maple cookies. And that Anamonoguchi soundtrack is just incredible.

Oh, fantastic. Oh, my God. Anamonoguchi was in town like two years ago, and I don't remember the exact circumstances that I couldn't go. I think it was COVID-related, but I was so mad because multiple of my friends went and they had special prints. And, of course, I love that soundtrack and hearing it live and in person. Man. Yeah. That was the last concert I went to before COVID hit.

It was we were, I remember I ran into a bunch of friends there. We were all going, hey, you hear about this disease? I thought this virus is going around. I'm sure the authorities will stop it before I guess to be a proud. I literally thought that to myself. I did get to see a live and in person screening of the Scott Pilgrim movie in, maybe 2011. It was a long time ago.

And Edgar Wright was there. And he was accepting Q&A's. And before the start of each movie, he asked people, he went through the IMDB tags and picked one. And then you had to clap every time

one happened. And for Scott Pilgrim, it was coins. And for hot fuzz, it was the steak through the chin. So everybody that's like the grossest moment in that entire movie and everybody went of course yeah I was actually recently at Casaloma because they had a Halloween thing going on

I was actually pretty good but every time I go there I look down the railings and like think about the idiot trying to skate down them and I'm saying those are like the crappiest railings in the world and it'll be fine explodes Oh, one thing I want to bring up that I think we'll all agree on here is the Yetty Mansion from Twilight Princess, which is, first of all the one of the better Zelda Dungeons, I think, even though I am not a fair, fan of sliding ice puzzles, the aesthetic and just the different feel of being in a mansion versus like a hole in the ground, like you usually are for Zelda. Yeah. Yeah, that was fantastic.

It was perfect. It's perfect. Re-contextualizing a residential space to be a dungeon is brilliant. It's always brilliant. It always works great. It's always ethically correct. I think the thing that I like about the Yeti mansion is the first, several dungeons in Twilight Princess are very stock Zelda dungeons to the point where you're

going, okay, yeah, I've been here or done that. You don't even know you're in a dungeon in Twilight in in the snow, the Yeti Temple. You think, I think you, I recall there's a sliding, you're sliding down a hill or something like that. You find the Yeti mansion. And your frozen leaf. So already, just the entrance is memorable. And you think, oh, I have to complete this in order. to get to the dungeon and you're helping this Yeti make this delicious soup. And if I recall correctly, you're gathering up ingredients and you're starting to explore. And the moment where you get the mace, the big swinging mace, which by the way is a great Zelda weapon, it was very different from a lot of the other weapons that stuff that you got in

Twilight Princess. It didn't feel contrived like the thing that. you're jumping on the walls. Oh, I like the spinner. I like the spinner. You like the spinner? Spinner's fun. I liked the maze.

It was a fun weapon. The enemy that you were fighting really leaned into the combat mechanics with that one. Yes. And that's the moment where you go, that's a miniboss. I got a new power. This is a dungeon. Yes, exactly. Really, really good.

You don't really realize at first that it's a traditional dungeon. And even the quest that you're doing where you're getting the ingredients for the Yeti because this wife is sick. And it's, you know, being sick, if you live in a cold environment, that is kind of par for the course. Like, I just look at my watch, say, oh, it's January. Here comes the flu. Even though I got my shot, it doesn't matter. So eating hot soup, of course, is something that I'm extremely familiar with when I'm sick. I actually have a, I take like chicken stock and I just loaded up with garlic and hot sauce. And, you know, it just kind of reminds me of that. You can be

cozy when you're sick, as long as you're not feverish and want to kill yourself. It's just a dungeon about a guy who loves his wife. It is. It's a Valentine's. Big wife guy that you can't identify with that. Then I don't know what there is out there for us, you know? I agree. When I played that dungeon for the first time, I actually was sick. It was early 2007. I was living in Japan at that time. Twilight Princess had just come out. And my partner, Emily and I were taking turns playing it because I would have to leave the room while she played because we didn't want to spoil one another on it. And we 100% of that game, each one of us 100% of that game had just an incredible time with it. But I was sick at one point when I was playing that

specific dungeon and it was so warm and so cozy and evocative. And it really was a perfect antidote for the Japanese winter because I was also curled up under a blanket while I was playing it. One of those moments where video game intrudes on real life. Wow. Art imitating life imitating art.

Truly. How about that? Victor, have you played Earthbound? I can't remember. I have started Earthbound a dozen times. I've started Mother 3 a dozen times. I'm, that's it's a blind spot that I

I will correct someday. I understand. Cat, you haven't played it yet, right? Have you? Not really, no. Actually, when I was flying home from L.A., I was watching my friend Jada play Earthbound. But Earthbound is a little bit of a blind spot for me personally.

Yeah, I'm definitely a fan. I think Eric is going to be playing it on the Blood God stream soon enough. But there is a area in Earthbound called Winters. And I love this area because, first of all, It's, I won't really spoil anything, but the structure of earthbound story sent you to winters during a very tense time in the story. And it kind of shifts the narrative for a little while to Jeff, who has to work backwards and rescue his friends. And you start off in a boarding house. And it just, you have like the fireplace going there.

The boys are all kind of hanging out before they go to bed. It's all very nice and cozy. And Jeff is there, and he is summoned telepathically to help. And so he has to leave, which is a very kind of like leaving a warm blanket to go out into the wilderness. He doesn't know what's going on. He just knows he's compelled to do it. Actually, to get out, he uses his friend who is named Tony and is canonically gay. And that was something that was very not much done in 90s games.

But it's who I said, like, yeah, he's in love with Jeff. which is very cute. But anyway, you go out from this nice, cozy area, which has a very soft remix of Snowman, which is a theme that appears in all of them other games. And it's usually, if you heard it in Smash, you probably are familiar with it. But he goes out into the wilderness and it's cold and it's weird. And there are a caveman who are the primary enemy. I don't know why. But yeah, when you get out into the world, the music and the tone shift from that dark, soft, kind of atmosphere to a more jingly, festive atmosphere where people who look like Fred Flintstone are walking around because of Earthbound. And he works backwards from there to where his friends are

trapped and it's a long journey. And he meets his father, Dr. Andanuts, who's also in Mother 3. And Dr. Andanuts doesn't really know his son very well. He's like, I just shift you off. I kind of shipped you off to boarding school. How you doing? So that's kind of awkward. But yeah, um, And it's a great part of the game. I'm excited to see Eric get there if he does. Hopefully he sticks to him. Nadia, you mentioned something earlier, and I had several traumatic flashbacks. Oh, dear.

So you mentioned sliding box puzzles. Yeah. Which is definitely one of my least favorite things in a snow or winter video game. Where you walk into a room and you see some boxes, and they're all set up, and you start pushing them, and you have to get them onto a switch or something. If I recall correctly, this is one, maybe in the frozen palace or the winter palace and a link to the past, among other things. Ocarina of Time had it infamously in the little area where you fight the winter wolfos and get the iron boots, I think. It is the cousin of the box puzzle, which when I'm the queen of video games, I will ban all box puzzles forever. Victor gets exiled because he finds it.

Soko Bon is a rich part of our history. That's true. You would have to banish Parrish as well. Yeah. Sorry, Parrish. You're being banned into the banished into the Middle Realm. You're being thrown from your own reaction. Breaking my heart.

North round with the spiders. I'm assuming you haven't played Void Stranger then. I haven't. Ah, it's brilliant. It's brilliant. I can understand that for various people, it makes their, you know, their brain go burr as they're watching all of the boxes slide around. But for me personally, I find it pretty contrived and I like a more diagetic approach to video games. What's more diagetic than slipping on ice?

Oh, God, kill me. That's the one thing I can do that. Actually, my favorite feeling, when they talk about game feels sometime, and Red Dead Redemption 2, which is not retro, but it's getting there. God, we're all getting there. The opening sequence has you walking through waist high snow with a lantern in the middle of a driving blizzard. and instantaneously, I felt that snow, I felt that winter, I felt that blizzard.

And that is what I look for in winter, not necessarily slipping, but walking through snow. I like snow, not necessarily ice. Bah, immersion. Ba, bah. A filthy word. Thank you. I think that I think that the chill penguin level in Megamandex is an all-timer.

And very good. One of the reasons for that is the moment where you enter that icy cave. And it was a really cool graphical effect for the time. And where there's, I can't remember if we had slip mechanics going on. I know we did for the boss fight. Chil Penguin had that little thingy on his ceiling, the hook that he would pull and make a snowstorm. And that looked really good for the 16-bit era. Great music too.

Great, great music. And it's memorable because it's always the level you play first. Yes. Unless you're playing Maverick Hunter X, they screw you up on that one. Sure. Really? What happens? They move the power-ups for one thing. It's very much a remix kind of game. I loved it. I would love to see it on somewhere that's not a dead system, but what do I know?

I wanted, I was so looking forward to all the other powered up versions we were going to get. I was so sure we were going to get two three six. love to make a man too powered up. Yeah. Oh, God. Man. I love that chill penguins level has impacts beyond it,

that it freezes flame mammoth level. Yeah. Very cool. You always have to wonder, okay, does snow beat fire or does fire beat snow? That's always a question. Because sometimes,

because you think to yourself, does chill penguin freeze flame mammoth or do you use something else on us? You can use the flame mammoth's weapon and he lights up like a firecracker. It's actually funny. That is actually pretty cool. Yeah, and it's actually very similar to the yoga flame effect. What cuts off his trunk?

Isn't there a trunk? His trunk is cut off by rolling cutter. Oh, the boomer quangar. Yeah, yeah, right? Which is so cool. It's kind of a precursor to one that I was going to bring up was Mega Man 04 with the weather effects in there. Yes.

They sort of function as your normal or hard difficulty. You have the ability to alter the weather. And there are some stages that you can just make easier because snow will pack on the spikes. So you can freely walk over them. I love zero four's weather stuff is very, very fun. Zero four is a great game. But they did the same thing with the Mega Man 7, where I can't remember what you would do,

but you could cause snow, I think, in a cloud man stage, and that would reveal hidden platforms that were otherwise kind of tricky to see. So I like that effect. Is Chill Penguin the single best Mega Man Ice Stage of them all? Could be. It's been so long since I played, like, all the games. It's the original Iceman stage in the original Mega Man.

Okay, so I was never a big fan of the disappearing blocks. No, they suck a puzzle. They suck ass. Very stressful. And Ice Man Stage has a lot of them, actually. Multiple of them, I think, over spikes or pits. Yes. And there's a lot of ice in it.

So not the biggest fan of that one. But Chil Penguin is great because you don't have to deal with any of that. Mega Man X blessedly gets rid of all of them. Yeah. And you get a giant mex suit that you can punch through igloos with. That is pretty cool. Yeah. But Mega Man X-4 also has a really nice ice stage where you have two parts where you have a snowstorm.

And then the second part, you're more in an ice cavern. And there's an enemy that will come out like a little bird that will fly over and freeze everything is a really neat effect. Frost War Wars. He's also fun because he's so big and kick his ass pretty easily. He's usually the first one you go for, as I recall. Yeah. I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't talk a little bit about the snowball fight in Final Fantasy tactics. Vance.

Brilliant. Which to me, I think a good tutorial is hard to do because they're so often really boring. They are, again, contrived and really take you out of the experience. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance teaches you the mechanics of a tactics game with a snowball fight, which accomplishes multiple things. One, it teaches you how to play the game. Two, it introduces all of the characters. Three, it looks really pretty.

And four, it has a storytelling beat to it and really puts you into the world. So it's an instantly compelling sequence. It's a fun, low-stakes way to learn how to play the game. And also, it kind of, when you think of snow, like sometimes I think of maybe frozen or maybe a little bit of a fairy tale aspect to it. and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance has a huge fairy tale component to it because all of the characters basically get pulled into a fantasy world. So I think establishing it in the snowy streets and having them have a snowball fight is perfect.

And it's in the school yard. Like it's just so sweet and perfect and nostalgic in all the right ways. and it has so much, like you say, it's got unique pixel art that you don't see anywhere else. Yeah, it's incredible. It's the only inaccuracy is that I don't know about any of your schools, Victor, but my schools banned snowball fights because kids were like, you know, they put rocks and ice and shit in snowballs. Yeah, ruin it for everyone. Didn't stop us, don't get me wrong.

But the teachers would have come up and broken up that tutorial session pretty quickly when I was a kid. We always struggled with snowball fights because the ice wouldn't, or the snow wouldn't pack properly. It was maybe a little too powdery. Yeah. Maybe during the, once he got to January, February, it would start to get kind of slushy. It starts to thought it. It would pack a bit better. Yeah.

But it was also full of dirt and mud and mast. And that's why we don't have snowfall fights. That was always the worst. In November, December, it would start snowing in Minnesota. He'd be like, wow, gorgeous. And then by February, March. you're thinking to yourself, I'll please get me out of this. I can't deal with this anymore. Please no more snow, not one more. If you're a Canadian, you tend to run away to Cuba for a while.

That's the Canadian thing to do. Right. Snowbirds. A lot of Minnesota have houses in Florida or Arizona. Yeah. A lot of Canadians go to Florida, but I haven't heard about Arizona being a popular spot for us. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. But yeah, I think, I think on the West Coast, I know my parents and some friends who are partial to Arizona. Oh, really? I guess it could be a West Coast thing. It makes sense. The first time Emily ever went to San Francisco, she went for a work trip.

And it was the middle of February, and it was freezing cold. It was below zero. I wanted to die. And she came back looking brisk and refreshed. She was like, I was wearing shorts. Oh, yeah. I didn't have a jacket. people were looking at me like I was crazy.

I thought it was gorgeous. We have to live there. Friends, I did live in February. And fun fact, February from a weather standpoint is often one of the best times of year in San Francisco because the marine layer goes away. And it's weirdly very sunny and warm. And the rest of the country is totally miserable. Yeah. But I'm right.

It's the worst. Microclimates. Wow. Okay, enough of this cozy BS. The cold is oppressive and miserable and a reminder of the worst times in our life. That's why I'm introducing Silent Hill shattered memories into the mix. No snow levels. We're talking snow games.

This whole thing is just the horrible life of a very sad teenage girl simulator in a small town with bad winters. And I think it's incredible. I love that game. It's, I know some of the latter Silent Hills get a bad rap, but I miss, I really liked when they would just sort of pick, okay, well, this Silent Hill is cold. This one is rainy. We're just going to run with that theme. The first one is foggy. Yeah, I think Shattered Memory is really, really good. And as someone who grew up in a smaller town that got very, very, very snowy, it, the. especially when you figure out there's a point in the game where you discover that oh if you're not in the hell version of silent hill there really are no threats you know it is an adventure game essentially until you get to the escape sequences and they are so they they capture the uncanniness of early silent hills really well there's just a like being in a town and not seeing a anyone else on the road and running into maybe one or two other people as you wander the streets is a really cool feeling. I actually had that feeling in real life during COVID.

And it was absolutely terrifying because I live in a Jewish area. It was around Passover and usually like the area is quite packed with, you know, people coming from other places and spending the holidays with their family, very busy people are shopping and of course everyone you know there's lots of jewish people live there everyone's kind of doing their thing easter is usually around that time and i literally stood in the middle of the street and just you know nobody nobody because i was on my way there's one star open and i was going to get supplies that's it was just a terrifying feeling and it was cold because it was a very cold april yeah uh and then then you get the the escape sequences um and the way The way they adapted the transformation of Silent Hill into the hell version, foreshadowed memories, is gorgeous.

The fact that they did it on the Wii is incredible because it's happening in real time and you're seeing things freeze in real time and street lamps are getting twisted and encased in ice and cars are crashing and buildings are getting frozen over. and then you're seeing shapes deep within the ice moving. Ah, it's gorgeous. That's terrific. It's brilliant. What a good game. Everyone go out and play shattered memories. Didn't Tom Hewlett work on that one?

I was going to say, yeah, Tom Hewlett. A friend of ours. And a Sam Barlow. I love that game. We, Kat, you, speaking of horror, one of your choices is one of my horrors, which is World Six and Super Mario Brothers Three, Iceland, which if you're in the Japanese, if you're Japanese version is iced land. You got to have that D. But did you ever get the Hammer Brothers suit in the Toad House? And I don't mean the one in the newer versions of Mario 3 where they wuss out and give me a direct path. You had to do some weird flying stuff to get the Hammer Brothers suit in Iceland and Mario 3. And it was my white whale. And I finally did it. But at what cost? Getting the hammer suit was so exciting. It was. Because it was so rare. You didn't.

really, it didn't really advertise that it was a thing that it existed. The Tanuki suit and the tail were the ones that were always the ones that were advertised. I think World Six is one of the lesser known Mario 3 movie worlds because

a lot of people warp whistle, right? Yes. So they probably warp. Maybe they do one, two, three. Maybe they did four. Some on the do four. But there's a decent chance that they warp whistle. They missed five and six. And for me, five, five in particular, but also six are some real highlights of Mario 3.

I love the little plants that are frozen, but if you use your fireballs, you can melt them and accidentally release them. They do a lot of fun things with ice blocks in particular. And that is for me where Mario 3 really starts getting special. It's also when the gloves come off in terms of the difficulty starting around World 5, where the developer say, okay, okay, you're here.

Good luck. And when I play Mario 3, I always make a point of playing through the entire game without using any warps because I think every world is so special. World 7 is the most difficult world in the game. I think maybe more so even than World 8.

I think so. When I played it on the Wii, When it originally came out on virtual console, I had, I think I lost 40 or 50 lies in that in World 7. It was crazy. But world, so World Six to me is in that sweet spot of all the parts that I love about that game. World Six is also the biggest map in the game. So it's a real, like, endeavor.

And the thing I love about Mario 3, above Mario, world. I'm sorry, people, is that Mario 3 is so good at its visual storytelling. It does not get any credit for that. The fact that you start World 5 on the ground and you ascend a tower and then you're in the sky, that's incredible. It's perfect. And in the, you were talking about how special the hammer suit was, Kat. And specifically, there is a level in Iceland where, yes, you have the Toadhouse where you can get the hammer suit and to do that, you have to fly holding a shell and throw that and slide under. And it's a real exercise for your fingers. It's not essential by any means, but if you want to be clever, if you want to explore, Mario 3 has you covered. And you mentioned

you fling the fireballs at the plants and they defrost. There is another hammer suit and you have to work really quickly at this. And this was another one of my white whale. when I was a kid. You hit a P block that's out of range, and then you have to run to the plants that were frozen. And if you were smart, you froze them ahead of time. They turned to coins when the P block is on. And then that allows you entrance to the pipe they are guarding, otherwise you can't touch it. And there is a hammer suit there. And again, wow, what a cool puzzle. And World Seven, like just the imagery there is fantastic. That is where one of my favorite castles is. That is the coin castle where you hit a P block and holy shit, all these, all these coins.

Like, I'm going to collect these. And eventually you start to realize you can collect all the coins you want. You can collect all the lives you want, but you can't get out until you think about it. And this is a castle that is abandoned. There are no enemies other than boom, boom. And you wonder, what happened here? And again, you have to do some fancy flying where you have to get a Tanokee suit. you have to fly up to the ceiling to find this pipe we're supposed to progress through.

But until then, you wonder yourself, why did they make this castle that has so many coins and you can collect all the coins you want? But unless you start thinking, that's the only way to get out. And then you wonder, what happened to everything else that was there? Because you see, like, the empty stumps of candles. You see the special weird layers where that weird stretchy ghost suits to live. Did they all just die trying to collect these coins? Like, is there a message here about the futility of pursuing, there can be?

I don't, it's so strange to me that they thought this way, but it's remarkable. Mario 3 is the last time Bowser actively declared war on the Mushroom Kingdom. And then after that, he went on vacation and just took it easy from that point on. Had a kid. It was more of a friendly protagonist. But he brought the army, the Air Force, the Navy. He brought everything. He has ships, man.

Yeah. And the seas are blood. It's World Six and Seven, and honestly five as well, where the mini fortresses really start to get special as well. They're really complicated examples of level design. I don't like to talk shit about Mario World in comparison to Mario 3. Yeah, same. I think Mario World is really special in different ways. but I don't think it has anything even approaching,

and I include the ghost's house in this, the complicated designs of some of the fortresses, especially in World Seven. Yeah, we really went off track, but I really could talk about Mario 3, like all day and all night. I'm ridiculous. Victor, do you like Mario 3?

I like Mario 3 just fine. However, my first console was a Super Nintendo. So I played the crap out of Mario World more than I did 3. But I love three. Yeah. Respect. And so, I'm going to be the

You know, all three of us being RPG fans, I think it would be a huge shame if we did not mention Narsh from Final Fantasy 6. Absolutely. Because to this day, I don't know if Narsh is in a mountain or a valley, but either way, it has a really interesting closed-off feeling. And the steam, it works really, really well with all the steam pump, like steam and pipes stuff going around. And the opening shot of Tara and the soldiers walking towards Narsh as it grows in the in the distance. That was actually recently used to promote Final Fantasy Collection. Shibuya Station had that scene up on like a wall projected. So it goes to show how incredible, what a feat it was for the Super Nintendo and the snow blowing around again,

talking about authentic feeling winter scenes. That's a big one for me. Yeah. All the chimneys, like either the steaming, yep. Yeah, the steam coming out of things and the pipes and everything. It's got that feel of like a steampunk Dickensian winter, you know? It feels very, but yeah. Steampunk, Dickensian winter.

I love that. I think so. I'm a chimney sweep. But yeah, like you say, that there is that discrepancy when you see them over the ridge and then you see the lights of the buildings on the opposite side of the valley, which I assume is. supposed to be Narsh, but then you don't really experience that. It feels like the actual playable space of Narsh is at the bottom of that valley, which kind of hits me as someone who grew up in a town that literally exists in the bottom of a valley. You were in a rain shadow, weren't you? Yes, yeah. We've learned about those in geography. Also, the Esper is frozen in ice.

Yes, Tritok or Valley Garmanda. Yeah. play Don Trail, which you should. Earlier, Victor was mentioning horror and how, and Silent Hill Shattered Memories. And I think winter can be just an incredible horror setting. Oh, absolutely. Of course, the thing, one of the iconic horror movies of all times set in the North Pole. Also, The Shining, the Old Book Hotel. Really good, really fantastic example, especially the book.

You really do feel snowed in when you read that. It's terrifying. The feeling of being isolated and remote and trapped with snow all around you and it's cold and you cannot get out. And cold things, cold symbolizes death. Yeah. Warmth symbolizes life. And so the reason I went back to this was because things frozen in ice in mysterious areas such as the Esper and Final Fantasy 6. that is where cold can be really powerful imagery in fiction.

Yeah, I agree. I think of SMT Strange Journey. Yes, yes. Such a good game. Yeah, if you want isolation and the thing inspired, it doesn't get much more isolated than... I still think of the first level is one of my favorite an RPG because that music, it's very commanding and, like, frightening, and you are in this frozen area.

Kat, you mentioned things frozen in ice, and that's always a, oh, my God, moment, because something frozen in ice, if you release it, it might help you, and it might kill you. You don't know, except in the context of the game, but even then, it could be kind of dicey. Or you can get to the treasure. You know what? The long last, yay. You know what will help you that's frozen in ice? The cheerleaders of Owendon 2 at the end of Part 1 of the finale.

Okay. So Oendon 1, right? Your final level. This is everyone's favorite rhythm series, Oendon and Elite Beat agents. DS games, super, super great. All licensed pop songs out of those crunchy DS speakers. Some of them are really bad covers sung by the guy who did the Pokemon on theme song.

I didn't even know that. No way. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bless him. But I love these games. And they all have incredible climaxes. They're just fantastic.

First one, O-N-Don, you play as a group of Japanese male cheerleaders. Or you can unlock the female characters for the very hard mode. But it's through cheering that you stoke the fighting spirits of the people around you to help them solve their problems. Now, a big problem in the first one is that there's a meteor hurtling towards Earth, but you cheer hard enough that the meteor is, calamity is averted. Elite beat agents, there's an alien invasion. You cheer everyone on enough.

And the aliens band music. No music, but jumping jack flash. It's a big old footloose scenario. Yeah. However, Oendon 2, part one of the finale is that the sun, is dying. Oh, no. Let's hear it back to life.

Yeah. What's more scary than the heat death of the universe? Yes, the sun has cooled down. The world is freezing. Everyone, you are, it's to the tune of Countdown by Hyde, a pretty good song. Some really classic 2000s, J-Rock. Oh, yeah. That's what you need.

And of course, the Oendon team, there's ice raining from the sky and to protect the people of their town, the Owendon team jumps in the way and they are hit by the ice and part one ends with them frozen. Oh no. Then part two kicks in and all of the people that you have helped along the way, they are the ones who will revive the Oendon with their fighting spirit that the Oendon. that the Oendon gave them. And they cheer hard enough that Sekaiwa Soriwo Aitoyo Bundeze by Sambo Master begins playing, and they are freed from their ice, and together the fighting spirit of the people of first Japan and then the entire planet Earth is enough to reignite the sun. Hell, yeah.

And it's incredible. And then it goes supernova. Oh, no, too much, too much. My grandpa's too strong. Yeah, yeah. It's incredible. I love it. The songs, the song choices are great.

I am also a fan of the Jump and Jack Flash and Elite Beat. Flash. But, yeah. The, if you want to talk about Elite Beat agents, because of course you do, the Christmas. Oh. You're the inspiration. I was once in a bookstore and I heard that song. I was crying.

It was ridiculous because of that scenario. where her daddy's dead and does he go back to life? I'm not sure what happens if you do. No, it's that if you do well enough, then his spirit, oh God, I'm going to cry thinking about it. Oh, it is sad. He, uh, if you beat the level that his spirit, uh, finally gets to deliver her the Christmas present.

He couldn't before he died. Oh, God. But if you screw it up, it's funny. actually said there's one part of that that's really sad that actually isn't funny where um you know how you do those little beats where you're doing the uh you're actually doing like the motions and there's a cinema kind of playing in the background yeah and there's one where she's running after her father and if you do well like he turns to look at her and if you screw it up he walks away and doesn't look at her and she starts crying i'm like oh god that's terrible i can't handle that

I think, though, I think the, because all of the games have one song that is like the emotional one. Yes. And I believe the one in Wendon 2 is about figure skater sisters. Oh, nice. And I think one of the figure skater sisters had died. Oh. And it's, it's the other figure skater carrying on her legacy. So, more, hey, these are all ice.

These are all ice. They're all ice. They're all ice. They're all ice. Figure skating. Uh, heat death. Eat death or figure skating. Take your pick.

I think we're running to talk about it would be remiss without doing it. I think one of the greatest video game levels or in areas of all time, probably top ten. interconnected, perfectly tied into the setting, set up in Alaska. At one point, Shat Snake gets a cold and is coughing and alerting the guards to his presence. There are wolves, howling. One of the great examples of sound design in a video game, I was watching it being played not too long ago,

And I was floored by so much of this game. And they really do a great job of using the winter setting and tying it into the actual gameplay mechanics. For example, in the opening area, after you ascend the elevator and you see in the Hindy, and you are trying to get from one side to the other. And there are guards with pineapples. and I forget what kind of weapon.

AKs, I think. AKs and pineapples. Oh, no, 5-5-6ers? Yeah, something like that. Anyway, there are security cameras. And if you are walking, the guards will notice your footprints in the snow and will go and investigate.

And frankly, the original Metal Gear Solid still has more advanced stealth mechanics and a lot of modern games that I play to this day. So full credit to that. Tactical stealth action. The whole idea of enemies finding your footprints

and following them, that was incredible for the time. Yeah. And the fact that they highlight it by then using your radar screen to show the enemy's viewpoint to see that they are in fact looking at your footprints. Yes.

It's so much fun. I think that's brilliant. I love it. it. Also, the colors in that game are just so cold. Everything about that game feels freezing cold. And the canon ending to me, because I never was able to save Meryl, because it's actually really hard, is Odecon and Snake riding into the sunset on a snowmobile. Oh, they're totally a couple. They're like red and blue in the, in Pokemon, which one was a lower region? Sun and moon. Yeah. Just. Yes. Where they're on vacation? together is definitely not an item.

Definitely not gay. Roommates. They're roommates. I even love, I know a lot of people bag on MGS4. I'm not going to do that because I think MGS4 kicks ass. But the way it also recontextualizes a lot of stuff in Shadow Moses, I know the cynical take is that it's pandering to nostalgia, but I think it actually does a really, really, really good job of capturing that space and then expanding it in places that are important.

Like the fight with Crying Wolf takes place in an area that you, an amount of space that you wouldn't have been able to do on the PS1. And I think it feels great. I mean, that fight, your mileage may vary with the actual fight itself, but no, I love it. And I'm also a big twin snakes fan because anytime you give me a familiar space and then give me a bunch of verbs I'm not supposed to have and I get to break that game in half is a good time. Like twin snakes is not a replacement for Metal Gear Solid. It is it is a companion piece. It is supplementary material.

It's a companion piece. I learned relatively recently that Hideo Kajima used Legos. to design the levels of Shadow Moses Island and Meliger Solid. So you would build these rooms and then he would take a little mini camera and fly it in. And that was how he showed the designers and the level artists how the camera was supposed to work when Snake was pressed up against a wall and such. I thought that was really ingenious. People like to rague on Hideo-Kajima, but I loved seeing that. in action specifically with that old home video footage in the late 90s.

Oh, man. Good stuff. If you can get your hands on it, the document of Metal Gear Solid 2, the PS2 game, quote unquote, that is just it's a companion piece to MGS2 that has all the scripts in it and a bunch of, it's just like an interactive documentary all about Metal Gear Solid that is incredible. Yeah, we have been talking so much about cold and snow that now I am cold. So I am ready to kick it off and drink some hot soup. I don't know about the rest of you.

Can I squeeze one more in real quick? Just one more. Just one more. Just real quick. Just because I need to. Good for you. JRPs are very, very good at the snowy places and the snowy towns. They've always got cozy, cozy villages.

I think I want to shout out one, especially, Flanour in Tales of Symphonia, because it is also kind of where the emotional core of the game is. It is sort of the biggest emotional. character beats all happen there. It's sort of Flanour is like the lead up to that game's first ending. But also

it is where you sort of discover that the game has been keeping track of your affinity with your party members and your top three characters in your party that have the highest affinity

with you will approach Lloyd and ask him if he wants to go for a walk. And that, you can turn away characters. And if you turn away enough, you will get a default character. But it shows who you've got affinity with. And then that character sort of becomes your soulmate for the rest of the game. And it can be anyone in your party.

And it gives you special dialogue for the rest of the game. It unlocks certain items. It's really, really lovely. But also, that means that it has the same arc as Sakura Wars. I knew this is going to get to Soccero War somehow. A game that keeps track of your party members' affinity, and then at a climactic point in the game, the top characters give you the option to go on a date with them, and that character becomes your soulmate. Also, both games' character designs by Koske Fujishima. Soccer Awards is an incredibly influential

JRP that should be in everyone's lexicon. It could be. Head to patreon.com slash blood god pod. The pantheon. Yeah, yeah. Well, the acts of blood gods leaking into this podcast. Don't worry. I have a whole thing set up to make sure that we get our promotion.

But I guess I'll get one more then, because I have to mention Final Fantasy 7, we talked about the snowboarding, But when you, man, when you climb that crater after the certain event that happens, that is a very, very steep fall from the climax in a very emotional way. And you have to keep warm as you climb. And I heard it was actually really hard in the Japanese version. They made it easier for the English version. But you crest that crater and see the storm that Saffroth is causing because he's a dick.

but there's also a town there and it's a snowy town because it's at the top of this crater and Final Fantasy 7 has all these fixed camera angles and you can only see this town like from head on and as you move deeper into the town cloud gets smaller and smaller

and when you start on the hillside of this town and you see kids tobogging like they're just kind of going down there's well in Canada we have like crazy carpets you ever have a crazy carpet Victor heck yeah yeah I had well I had a GT snow racer. Oh, I had that too. And I had, I had a, um, actually had a counterfeit GT snow racer that I went down the, uh, some ice. That went really well. I, I fucked up my arm so badly. Oh, but I love that town because see the kids tobogginging and they're having fun and, uh, even despite the fact, Shinres after you and they're kind of in occupying the town. There's still tobogging and you can see the sun. And this is what gets me about this level. You can see the sun just barely crows.

resting the trees. And it has a very winter afternoon look to the light. And Final Fantasy 7, vanilla, I mean, the remake is very good at atmosphere as well, but Final Fantasy 7 vanilla, the atmosphere is just unbeatable. And that really captured not just the, you know, what is like to live in a snowy town during winter, but also the light. The lighting is very unique, very watery in wintertime. And they did that very well. Oh, and just the sheer number of mechanics they add when you fall after you fall and you have to navigate that map that is turning and the snow is blowing and you have to set waypoints. I never find Alexander. I never find. To keep going in the right direction. And then it connects to this larger map of

little nodes of areas. And then yeah, like the keeping yourself warm and the, you know, failing anything and then ending up back at the the hut. There's there's a lot of good stuff there. there is yeah i like i said i don't get it i never got alexander but yeah maybe sunday yeah um this has been a really cool episode so to speak thank you guys so much for for joining us yeah but that will be it for now so i want you all to bundle up and enjoy your holiday preferably with your loved ones but if you want to celebrate with their demons you can celebrate with demons i won't judge uh if you like what retronauts does please support us at patreon dot com for slash retronauts. For $3 a month, you get episodes a week early and ad-free, and I think at a higher

bit rate than the free shows as well. So that's pretty cool. For Nintendo ultra-64 dollars a month, you get the chance to set the topic of the show once every six months. And for a cool hundo, you get the opportunity to guess on a segment of retronauts every four months that you're part of this tier. Holy moly. I think someone did this once and asked me to cover Raidant Historia, which is actually going our game of the month for the Pantheon over at Blood God, which you can find

us at patron.com for it slash Blood God Pod. We cover RPG's old and new, Eastern and Western. We stream live at 9am p.m. p.t. slash 12 p.m. E.T. Every Saturday on Twitch at Blood God Pod. Yeah.

We have some pretty incredible stuff coming in 2025, so y'all better pay attention to us. I'll find you if you don't. Like, I absolutely will. I have nothing else to do. Until then, until you see me, may your winter days be filled with soft, fluffy snow and not the slushy, awful crap that piles up beside the curb. Thank you. Thank you.